Chapter 5 [Des Esseintes decorates his tortoise with jewels and plays the music of flavors; his memory of a painful toothache]

Credits

This web version of John Howard's translation of Joris-Karl Huysmans's À Rebours, whose title is rendered both "Against the Grain" and "Against Nature," uses the Project Gutenberg ASCII text produced by "Harrison Ainsworth" (Release Date: May 14, 2004 [EBook #12341]; Project Gutenberg statement)

George P. Landow created the HTML design and formatted the text, adding French accents, which the Gutenberg text omits, and both ilustrations and links to materials on this site.

Contents

Chapter 1. [Ancestry, youth, and education of Duc Jean Des Esseintes; he sells the family chateau and moves to Fontenay-aux-Roses ]

Chapter 15. [Delirium; music of Wagner, Schubert; leave the Palace of Art or die!]

Chapter 16. [Des Esseintes reflects on religion, the decline of the aristocracy in a capitalist age, and prepares to return to Paris]

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Notes

In selecting the proper decorations for his tortoise-shell, Des Esseintes wanders over a variety of different gems, rejecting initially the common rainbow of stones — diamond, emerald, ruby, topaz, amethyst, and sapphire — in favor of variations and stranger gems, frequently using names that are misleading or archaic.

For the floral design on the shell, he starts with the leaves; chrysoberyl yellow-green ("asparagus"), olivine is true to its name, but chrysolite is problematic. The name has been applied variously to both chrysoberyls and olivines, and may be confused with the also green chrysotile (serpentine), though that gem is not a distinct, bright green, but a solid, milky one.

On the branches, almandine is a very dark garnet, while uvarovite (almost certainly misspelled as ouwarovite) is a bright green kind of garnet named for a Russian Count.

On the flowers, what "blue cinder" means is not particularly clear, but occidental turquoise, also known as bone or fossil turquoise, does consist of bones buried near iron deposits which develop a blue hue.

While Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is known for its gems, what a snap-dragon is is very unclear, especially as the flower is known for its brilliant colors - not a murky green. Cymophanes are classic cat's eyes, a form of chrysoberyl, and are a whitish yellow. Chalcedony refers to many kinds of stones, but in this case probably indicates an agate due to the contrast of the brown background.

Hydrophanes are a special type of opal that is transparent in water.

"Hyacinth" (yellow varieties of zircon) was probably intended as jacinth, a red variety drawing its name from the same type of flower. Compostelle is the capital of Galicia, a self-governing province in northwest Spain. Green beryl is simply emerald, though "glaucous" implies an unusual yellow-green color. "Balas ruby" refers not to a ruby but to a red spinel, a less precious stone, and the details of a Sudermanian ruby are mysterious. — Paul O'Leary McCann
[Return]

The afternoon was drawing to its close when a carriage halted in front
of the Fontenay house. Since Des Esseintes received no visitors, and
since the postman never even ventured into these uninhabited parts,
having no occasion to deliver any papers, magazines or letters, the
servants hesitated before opening the door. Then, as the bell was rung
furiously again, they peered through the peep-hole cut into the wall,
and perceived a man, concealed, from neck to waist, behind an immense
gold buckler.

They informed their master, who was breakfasting.

"Ask him in," he said, for he recalled having given his address to a
lapidary for the delivery of a purchase.

The man bowed and deposited the buckler on the pinewood floor of the
dining room. It oscillated and wavered, revealing the serpentine head
of a tortoise which, suddenly terrified, retreated into its shell.

This tortoise was a fancy which had seized Des Esseintes some time
before his departure from Paris. Examining an Oriental rug, one day,
in reflected light, and following the silver gleams which fell on its
web of plum violet and alladin yellow, it suddenly occurred to him how
much it would be improved if he could place on it some object whose
deep color might enhance the vividness of its tints.

Possessed by this idea, he had been strolling aimlessly along the
streets, when suddenly he found himself gazing at the very object of
his wishes. There, in a shop window on the Palais Royal, lay a huge
tortoise in a large basin. He had purchased it. Then he had sat a long
time, with eyes half-shut, studying the effect.

Decidedly, the Ethiopic black, the harsh Sienna tone of this shell
dulled the rug's reflections without adding to it. The dominant silver
gleams in it barely sparkled, crawling with lack-lustre tones of dead
zinc against the edges of the hard, tarnished shell.

He bit his nails while he studied a method of removing these discords
and reconciling the determined opposition of the tones. He finally
discovered that his first inspiration, which was to animate the fire
of the weave by setting it off against some dark object, was
erroneous. In fact, this rug was too new, too petulant and gaudy. The
colors were not sufficiently subdued. He must reverse the process,
dull the tones, and extinguish them by the contrast of a striking
object, which would eclipse all else and cast a golden light on the
pale silver. Thus stated, the problem was easier to solve. He
therefore decided to glaze the shell of the tortoise with gold.

The tortoise, just returned by the lapidary, shone brilliantly,
softening the tones of the rug and casting on it a gorgeous reflection
which resembled the irradiations from the scales of a barbaric
Visigoth shield.

At first Des Esseintes was enchanted with this effect. Then he
reflected that this gigantic jewel was only in outline, that it would
not really be complete until it had been incrusted with rare stones.

From a Japanese collection he chose a design representing a cluster of
flowers emanating spindle-like, from a slender stalk. Taking it to a
jeweler, he sketched a border to enclose this bouquet in an oval
frame, and informed the amazed lapidary that every petal and every
leaf was to be designed with jewels and mounted on the scales of the
tortoise.

The choice of stones made him pause. The diamond has become
notoriously common since every tradesman has taken to wearing it on
his little finger. The oriental emeralds and rubies are less
vulgarized and cast brilliant, rutilant flames, but they remind one of
the green and red antennae of certain omnibuses which carry signal
lights of these colors. As for topazes, whether sparkling or dim, they
are cheap stones, precious only to women of the middle class who like
to have jewel cases on their dressing-tables. And then, although the
Church has preserved for the amethyst a sacerdotal character which is
at once unctuous and solemn, this stone, too, is abused on the
blood-red ears and veined hands of butchers' wives who love to adorn
themselves inexpensively with real and heavy jewels. Only the
sapphire, among all these stones, has kept its fires undefiled by any
taint of commercialism. Its sparks, crackling in its limpid, cold
depths have in some way protected its shy and proud nobility from
pollution. Unfortunately, its fresh fire does not sparkle in
artificial light: the blue retreats and seems to fall asleep, only
awakening to shine at daybreak.

None of these satisfied Des Esseintes at all. They were too civilized
and familiar. He let trickle through his fingers still more
astonishing and bizarre stones, and finally selected a number of real
and artificial ones which, used together, should produce a fascinating
and disconcerting harmony.

This is how he composed his bouquet of flowers: the leaves were set
with jewels of a pronounced, distinct green; the chrysoberyls of
asparagus green; the chrysolites of leek green; the olivines of olive
green. They hung from branches of almandine and ouwarovite of a
violet red, darting spangles of a hard brilliance like tartar micas
gleaming through forest depths.

Left: Yellow Chrysoberyl. Right: Uuvarovite, a form of garnet.

For the flowers, separated from the stalk and removed from the bottom
of the sheaf, he used blue cinder. But he formally waived that
oriental turquoise used for brooches and rings which, like the banal
pearl and the odious coral, serves to delight people of no importance.
He chose occidental turquoises exclusively, stones which, properly
speaking, are only a fossil ivory impregnated with coppery substances
whose sea blue is choked, opaque, sulphurous, as though yellowed by
bile.

This done, he could now set the petals of his flowers with transparent
stones which had morbid and vitreous sparks, feverish and sharp
lights.

He composed them entirely with Ceylon snap-dragons, cymophanes and
blue chalcedony.

These three stones darted mysterious and perverse scintillations,
painfully torn from the frozen depths of their troubled waters.

The snap-dragon of a greenish grey, streaked with concentric veins
which seem to stir and change constantly, according to the
dispositions of light.

The cymophane, whose azure waves float over the milky tint swimming in
its depths.

The blue chalcedony which kindles with bluish phosphorescent fires
against a dead brown, chocolate background.

The lapidary made a note of the places where the stones were to be
inlaid. "And the border of the shell?" he asked Des Esseintes.

At first he had thought of some opals and hydrophanes; but these
stones, interesting for their hesitating colors, for the evasions of
their flames, are too refractory and faithless; the opal has a quite
rheumatic sensitiveness; the play of its rays alters according to the
humidity, the warmth or cold; as for the hydrophane, it only burns in
water and only consents to kindle its embers when moistened.

He finally decided on minerals whose reflections vary; for the
Compostelle hyacinth, mahogany red; the beryl, glaucous green; the
balas ruby, vinegar rose; the Sudermanian ruby, pale slate. Their
feeble sparklings sufficed to light the darkness of the shell and
preserved the values of the flowering stones which they encircled with
a slender garland of vague fires.

Des Esseintes now watched the tortoise squatting in a corner of the
dining room, shining in the shadow.

He was perfectly happy. His eyes gleamed with pleasure at the
resplendencies of the flaming corrollae against the gold background.
Then, he grew hungry — a thing that rarely if ever happened to him — and
dipped his toast, spread with a special butter, in a cup of tea, a
flawless blend of Siafayoune, Moyoutann and Khansky — yellow teas which
had come from China to Russia by special caravans.

This liquid perfume he drank in those Chinese porcelains called
egg-shell, so light and diaphanous they are. And, as an accompaniment
to these adorable cups, he used a service of solid silver, slightly
gilded; the silver showed faintly under the fatigued layer of gold,
which gave it an aged, quite exhausted and moribund tint.

After he had finished his tea, he returned to his study and had the
servant carry in the tortoise which stubbornly refused to budge.

The snow was falling. By the lamp light, he saw the icy patterns on
the bluish windows, and the hoar-frost, like melted sugar,
scintillating in the stumps of bottles spotted with gold.

A deep silence enveloped the cottage drooping in shadow.

Des Esseintes fell into revery. The fireplace piled with logs gave
forth a smell of burning wood. He opened the window slightly.

Like a high tapestry of black ermine, the sky rose before him, black
flecked with white.

An icy wind swept past, accelerated the crazy flight of the snow, and
reversed the color order.

The heraldic tapestry of heaven returned, became a true ermine, a
white flecked with black, in its turn, by the specks of darkness
dispersed among the flakes.

He closed the window. This abrupt transition from torrid warmth to
cold winter affected him. He crouched near the fire and it occurred to
him that he needed a cordial to revive his flagging spirits.

He went to the dining room where, built in one of the panels, was a
closet containing a number of tiny casks, ranged side by side, and
resting on small stands of sandal wood.

This collection of barrels he called his mouth organ.

A stem could connect all the spigots and control them by a single
movement, so that once attached, he had only to press a button
concealed in the woodwork to turn on all the taps at the same time and
fill the mugs placed underneath.

The organ was now open. The stops labelled flute, horn, celestial
voice, were pulled out, ready to be placed. Des Esseintes sipped here
and there, enjoying the inner symphonies, succeeded in procuring
sensations in his throat analogous to those which music gives to the
ear.

Moreover, each liquor corresponded, according to his thinking, to the
sound of some instrument. Dry curacoa, for example, to the clarinet
whose tone is sourish and velvety; kummel to the oboe whose sonorous
notes snuffle; mint and anisette to the flute, at once sugary and
peppery, puling and sweet; while, to complete the orchestra,
kirschwasser has the furious ring of the trumpet; gin and whiskey
burn the palate with their strident crashings of trombones and
cornets; brandy storms with the deafening hubbub of tubas; while the
thunder-claps of the cymbals and the furiously beaten drum roll in the
mouth by means of the rakis de Chio.

He also thought that the comparison could be continued, that quartets
of string instruments could play under the palate, with the violin
simulated by old brandy, fumous and fine, piercing and frail; the
tenor violin by rum, louder and more sonorous; the cello by the
lacerating and lingering ratafia, melancholy and caressing; with the
double-bass, full-bodied, solid and dark as the old bitters. If one
wished to form a quintet, one could even add a fifth instrument with
the vibrant taste, the silvery detached and shrill note of dry cumin
imitating the harp.

The comparison was further prolonged. Tone relationships existed in
the music of liquors; to cite but one note, benedictine represents, so
to speak, the minor key of that major key of alcohols which are
designated in commercial scores, under the name of green Chartreuse.

These principles once admitted, he succeeded, after numerous
experiments, in enjoying silent melodies on his tongue, mute funeral
marches, in hearing, in his mouth, solos of mint, duos of ratafia and
rum.

He was even able to transfer to his palate real pieces of music,
following the composer step by step, rendering his thought, his
effects, his nuances, by combinations or contrasts of liquors, by
approximative and skilled mixtures.

At other times, he himself composed melodies, executed pastorals with
mild black-currant which evoked, in his throat, the trillings of
nightingales; with the tender chouva cocoa which sang saccharine songs
like "The romance of Estelle" and the "Ah! Shall I tell you, mama," of
past days.

But on this evening Des Esseintes was not inclined to listen to this
music. He confined himself to sounding one note on the keyboard of his
organ, by swallowing a little glass of genuine Irish whiskey.

He sank into his easy chair and slowly inhaled this fermented juice of
oats and barley: a pronounced taste of creosote was in his mouth.

Gradually, as he drank, his thought followed the now revived
sensitiveness of his palate, fitted its progress to the flavor of the
whiskey, re-awakened, by a fatal exactitude of odors, memories effaced
for years.

This carbolic tartness forcibly recalled to him the same taste he had
had on his tongue in the days when dentists worked on his gums.

Once abandoned on this track, his revery, at first dispersed among all
the dentists he had known, concentrated and converged on one of them
who was more firmly engraved in his memory.

It had happened three years ago. Seized, in the middle of the night,
with an abominable toothache, he put his hand to his cheek, stumbled
against the furniture, pacing up and down the room like a demented
person.

It was a molar which had already been filled; no remedy was possible.
Only a dentist could alleviate the pain. He feverishly waited for the
day, resolved to bear the most atrocious operation provided it would
only ease his sufferings.

Holding a hand to his jaw, he asked himself what should be done. The
dentists who treated him were rich merchants whom one could not see at
any time; one had to make an appointment. He told himself that this
would never do, that he could not endure it. He decided to patronize
the first one he could find, to hasten to a popular tooth-extractor,
one of those iron-fisted men who, if they are ignorant of the useless
art of dressing decaying teeth and of filling holes, know how to pull
the stubbornest stump with an unequalled rapidity. There, the office
is opened early in the morning and one is not required to wait. Seven
o'clock struck at last. He hurried out, and recollecting the name of a
mechanic who called himself a dentist and dwelt in the corner of a
quay, he rushed through the streets, holding his cheek with his hands
repressing the tears.

Arrived in front of the house, recognizable by an immense wooden
signboard where the name of "Gatonax" sprawled in enormous
pumpkin-colored letters, and by two little glass cases where false
teeth were carefully set in rose-colored wax, he gasped for breath. He
perspired profusely. A horrible fear shook him, a trembling crept
under his skin; suddenly a calm ensued, the suffering ceased, the
tooth stopped paining.

He remained, stupefied, on the sidewalk; finally, he stiffened against
the anguish, mounted the dim stairway, running up four steps at a time
to the fourth story. He found himself in front of a door where an
enamel plate repeated, inscribed in sky-blue lettering, the name on
the signboard. He rang the bell and then, terrified by the great red
spittles which he noticed on the steps, he faced about, resolved to
endure his toothache all his life. At that moment an excruciating cry
pierced the partitions, filled the cage of the doorway and glued him
to the spot with horror, at the same time that a door was opened and
an old woman invited him to enter.

His feeling of shame quickly changed to fear. He was ushered into a
dining room. Another door creaked and in entered a terrible grenadier
dressed in a frock-coat and black trousers. Des Esseintes followed him
to another room.

From this instant, his sensations were confused. He vaguely remembered
having sunk into a chair opposite a window, having murmured, as he put
a finger to his tooth: "It has already been filled and I am afraid
nothing more can be done with it."

The man immediately suppressed these explanations by introducing an
enormous index finger into his mouth. Muttering beneath his waxed
fang-like moustaches, he took an instrument from the table.

Then the play began. Clinging to the arms of his seat, Des Esseintes
felt a cold sensation in his cheek, and began to suffer unheard
agonies. Then he beheld stars. He stamped his feet frantically and
bleated like a sheep about to be slaughtered.

A snapping sound was heard, the molar had broken while being
extracted. It seemed that his head was being shattered, that his skull
was being smashed; he lost his senses, howled as loudly as he could,
furiously defending himself from the man who rushed at him anew as if
he wished to implant his whole arm in the depths of his bowels,
brusquely recoiled a step and, lifting the tooth attached to the jaw,
brutally let him fall back into the chair. Breathing heavily, his form
filling the window, he brandished at one end of his forceps, a blue
tooth with blood at one end.

Faint and prostrate, Des Esseintes spat blood into a basin, refused
with a gesture, the tooth which the old woman was about to wrap in a
piece of paper and fled, after paying two francs. Expectorating blood,
in his turn, down the steps, he at length found himself in the street,
joyous, feeling ten years younger, interested in every little
occurrence.

"Phew!" he exclaimed, saddened by the assault of these memories. He
rose to dissipate the horrible spell of this vision and, returning to
reality, began to be concerned with the tortoise.

It did not budge at all and he tapped it. The animal was dead.
Doubtless accustomed to a sedentary existence, to a humble life spent
underneath its poor shell, it had been unable to support the dazzling
luxury imposed on it, the rutilant cope with which it had been
covered, the jewels with which its back had been paved, like a pyx.